Bridgwater had fallen quiet by now; the army was gone and townsfolk were in their beds. Moodily, unconsciously, yet as if guided by a sort of instinct, he went down the High Street, and then turned off into the narrower lane that led in the direction of Lupton House. By the gates of this he paused, recalled out of his abstraction and rendered aware of whither his steps had led him by the sight of the hall door standing open, a black figure silhouetted against the light behind it. What was happening here? Why were they not abed like all decent folk?
The figure called to him in a quavering voice. “Mr. Wilding! Mr. Wilding!” for the light beating upon his face and figure from the open door had revealed him. The form came swiftly forward, its steps pattering down the walk, another slenderer figure surged in its place upon the threshold, hovered there an instant, then plunged down into the darkness to come after it. But the first was by now upon Mr. Wilding.
“What is it, Jasper?” he asked, recognizing the old servant.
“Mistress Ruth!” wailed the fellow, wringing his hands. “She.., she has been … carried off.” He got it out in gasps, winded by his short run and by the excitement that possessed him.
No word said Wilding. He just stood and stared, scarcely understanding, and in that moment they were joined by Richard. He seized Wilding by the arm. “Blake has carried her off,” he cried.
“Blake?” said Mr. Wilding, and wondered with a sensation of nausea was it an ordinary running away. But Richard’s next words made it plain to him that it was no amorous elopement, nor even amorous abduction.
“He has carried her to Feversham… for her betrayal of his to-night’s plan to seize the Duke.”
That stirred Mr. Wilding. He wasted no time in idle questions or idler complainings. “How long since?” he asked, and it was he who clutched Richard now, by the shoulder and with a hand that hurt.
“Not ten minutes ago,” was the quavering answer.
“And you were at hand when it befell?” cried Wilding, the scorn in his voice rising superior to his agitation and fears for Ruth. “You were at hand, and could neither prevent nor follow him?”
“I’ll go with you now, if you’ll give chase,” whimpered Richard, feeling himself for once the craven that he was.
“If?” echoed Wilding scornfully, and dragged him past the gate and up towards the house even as he spoke. “Is there room for a doubt of it? Have you horses, at least?”
“To spare,” said Richard as they hurried on. They skirted the house and found the stable door open as Blake had left it. Old Jasper followed with a lamp which burned steadily, so calm was the air of that July night. In three minutes they had saddled a couple of nags; in five they were riding for the bridge and the road to Weston Zoyland.
“It is a miracle you remained in Bridgwater,” said Richard as they rode. “How came you to be left behind?”
“I had a task assigned me in the town against the Duke’s return to-morrow,” Wilding explained, and he spoke almost mechanically, his mind full of – anguished by – thoughts of Ruth.
“Against the Duke’s return?” cried Richard, first surprised and then thinking that Wilding spoke at random. “Against the Duke’s return?” he repeated.
“That is what I said?”
“But the Duke is marching to Gloucester.”
“The Duke is marching by circuitous ways to Sedgemoor,” answered Wilding, never dreaming that at this time of day there could be the slightest imprudence in saying so much, indeed, taking little heed of what he said, his mind obsessed by the other, to him, far weightier matter.
“To Sedgemoor?” gasped Westmacott.
“Aye – to take Feversham by surprise – to destroy King James’s soldiers in their beds. He should be near upon the attack by now. But there! Spur on and save your breath if we are to overtake Sir Rowland.”
They pounded on through the night at a breakneck pace which they never slackened until, when within a quarter of a mile or so of Penzoy Pound, where the army was encamped and slumbering by now, they caught sight of the musketeers’ matches glowing in the dark ahead of them. An outpost barred their progress; but Richard had the watchword, and he spurred ahead shouting “Albemarle,” and the soldiers fell back and gave them passage. On they galloped, skirting Penzoy Pound and the army sleeping in Utter unconsciousness of the fate that was creeping stealthily upon it out of the darkness and mists across the moors; they clattered on past Langmoor Stone and dashed straight into the village, Richard never drawing rein until he reached the door of the cottage where Feversham was lodged.
They had come not only at a headlong pace, but in a headlong manner, without quite considering what awaited them at the end of their ride in addition to their object of finding Ruth. It was only now, as he drew rein before the lighted house and caught the sound of Blake’s raised voice pouring through an open window on the ground floor, that Richard fully realized what manner of rashness he was committing. He was too late to rescue Ruth from Blake. What more could he look to achieve? His hope had been that with Wilding’s help he might snatch her from Sir Rowland before the latter reached his destination. But now – to enter Feversham’s presence and in association with so notorious a rebel as Mr. Wilding were a piece of folly of the heroic kind that Richard did not savour. Indeed, had it not been for Wilding’s masterful presence, it is more than odds he had turned tail, and ridden home again to bed.
But Wilding, who had leapt nimbly to the ground, stood waiting for Richard to dismount, impatient now that from the sound of Sir Rowland’s voice he had assurance that Richard had proved an able guide. The young man got down, but might yet have hesitated had not Wilding caught him by the arm and whirled him up the steps, through the open door, past the two soldiers who kept it, and who were too surprised to stay him, straight into the long, low-ceilinged chamber where Feversham, attended by a captain of horse, was listening to Blake’s angry narrative of that night’s failure.
Mr. Wilding’s entrance was decidedly sensational. He stepped quickly forward, and, taking Blake who was still talking, all unconscious of those behind him, by the collar of his coat, he interrupted him in the middle of an impassioned period, wrenched him backwards off his feet, and dashed him with a force almost incredible into a heap in a corner of the room. There for some moments the baronet lay half dazed by the shock of his fall.
A long table, which seemed to divide the chamber in two, stood between Lord Feversham and his officer and Mr. Wilding and Ruth – by whose side he had now come to stand in Blake’s room.
There was an exclamation, half anger, half amazement, at Mr. Wilding’s outrage upon Sir Rowland, and the captain of horse sprang forward. But Wilding raised his hand, his face so composed and calm that it was impossible to think him conceiving any violence, as indeed he protested at that moment.
“Be assured, gentlemen,” he said, “that I have no further rudeness to offer any so that this lady is suffered to withdraw with me.” And he took in his own a hand that Ruth, amazed and unresisting, yielded up to him. That touch of his seemed to drive out her fears and to restore her confidence; the mortal terror in which she had been until his coming dropped from her now. She was no longer alone and abandoned to the vindictiveness of rude and violent men. She had beside her one in whom experience had taught her to have faith.
Louis Duras, Marquis de Blanquefort, and Earl of Feversham, coughed with mock discreetness under cover of his hand. “Ahem!”
He was a comely man with a long nose, good lowlidded eyes, a humorous mouth, and a weak chin; at a glance he looked what he was, a weak, good-natured sensualist. He was resplendent at the moment in a blue satin dressing-gown stiff with gold lace, for he had been interrupted by Blake’s arrival in the very act of putting himself to bed, and his head – divested of his wig – was bound up in a scarf of many colours.
At his side, the red-coated captain, arrested by the general’s sardonic cough, stood, a red-faced, freckled boy, looking to his superior for orders.
“I t’ink you `ave `urt Sare Rowland,” said Feversham composedly in his bad English. “Who are you, sare?”
“This lady’s husband,” answered Wilding, whereupon the captain stared and Feversham’s brows went up in surprised amusement.